So you are off on holiday?

Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng

The final day has arrived. Your bags are packed tight, heaving and groaning. It is the first day of your holiday, or vacation, as the Americans would put it. You have had a haircut or retouch of your permed hair and soon you shall be setting off to the airport. After what has seemed like an eternity, you are finally on the verge of flying away from out of town to get some rest before returning to the grindstone of work and bills. After all, as a bona fide boga you must also enjoy small. You feel light on your feet.


Ah, so where are you off to? Barbados or St. Lucia maybe, for a sunny week, sipping cocktails by the beach and observing the sunset as you relax your aching muscles and swing gently from a hammock? Or a short tour of Italy to explore the fine art galleries of Florence, the olive groves of Sicily and the Coliseum in Rome, the Eternal City, among others? Non? Mmm, must be a flight to the land of the Pharaohs, then, for a cruise down the Nile to see the Valley of the Kings, the Sphinx and other remnants of Ancient Egypt?


You must be having a laugh, because your average Ghanaian ‘boga’, when he books his holidays at work, is thinking of none other than dear old Kotoka, the land of his birth, the land where he can eat his freshly pounded cocoyam fufu and ‘mpunam’ light soup in peace, and where he will be surrounded by familiar faces that he can hold spellbound with his tales of life abroad. Home is home, as they say, no matter how far away you go.


But the notion that by going home the boga is actually going on holiday is an interesting contradiction in terms. Take for instance the stress of buying things for almost everyone who is known to you prior to setting off. On top of that you will need to buy some new things for yourself that you may not have thought of getting just yet-new shoes and clothes, among others. Then having arrived, you have to literally fight to fend off those who circle you like sharks closing in for a kill, seeking money, laying claim to your towel, watch, T-shirts and everything else, or seeking advice on one thing or the other as if you were an oracle. Then of course your dear mother would want fill you in about all the problems and scandals in the family, including the juicy one about Wofa Yaw’s spectacular quarrel with Maame Tiwaa, who in turn is rumoured to be a witch and cannot conceive because she has excavated all the contents of her womb to feast on. It goes on and on and on, and you wonder whether you are really on holiday. Are you really getting the rest your aching bones desire and deserve? Do you really have peace and quiet?


Of course there are those who take their holidays in order to organise and/or attend a funeral back home of a close relative, or to supervise one project or the other, mobile phone clamped to the ear all day long and blood pressure rising by the minute. With all the running around that these activities involve, it is no wonder most of them come back from their trip completely shattered. It is when you come back that you realise you now need a ‘proper’ holiday, but of course your boss will have none of it. You note wistfully that your white work colleagues who took their holidays in Malta or Bali are looking and feeling fabulous and rejuvenated. They have a lovely tan but of course you don’t need that.

Many Ghanaians abroad will see a holiday to exotic destinations as ostentatious, wasteful and unnecessary ‘abrofosem’, especially in light of the fact that the money so spent could easily buy a few bags of cement for a house back home or to pay your little nephew Kofi Santana’s fees back home. Your friends would look at you quizzically as if you were planning a trip to Hellmand province in Afganistan if you told them you were off to the Maldives for a couple of weeks. In other words you have lost your mind.


The interesting thing though is that the finance argument does not really hold water, for the simple reason that a fortnight’s trip home is far, far more expensive than an all-inclusive break in the Caribbean or Thailand for the same duration, especially with Ghana ticket prices these days. After all, once you have bought your ticket and paid for your hotel, there is not much more you need, and you certainly will not be risking excess luggage at the airport. You do not need to shop for the whole world and you do not need any new clothes or shoes or bags as you do not need to make an impression on anyone out there. The only things you are likely to spend money on may be souvenirs and tips for restaurant staff if you have booked an all-inclusive holiday.


Aside this, there are many Ghanaians who live in various countries abroad and have done so for many years without knowing travelling much beyond their city limits. The only time they leave town is to attend a funeral or outdooring or to catch a flight home. So whilst they may live in Vancouver, they have never been to the magnificent Niagara Falls. Or they may live in London for years and not have an idea where Stonehenge or Kew Gardens can be found. And yet in these cases it does not cost a fortune to do so.


If it is not necessarily more expensive to undertake a trip home, why is it simply seen as ‘un-Ghanaian’ to spend a week or two on a vacation/holiday which does not involve the familiarity of the motherland, and which, on the surface, seems pointless? The answer is simple, in my view. After all it is not the way we are brought up back home. How many Ghanaians, growing up in the south of the country, ever visited the Mole National Park or Paga crocodile pond as part of family break? In a land where there is a constant struggle to keep body and soul together, such trips are understandably seen as the height of luxury, and yet even many wealthy families do not take domestic breaks. What takes many Ghanaians to other parts of the country seems to be school, work, funerals or church activities, rather than simply a break in order to rejuvenate and explore. The concept is simply not wired into our DNA, I suppose. On more than one occasion, I have met non-Ghanaians in Europe who have visited Ghana and been to many places there, putting me to shame. In many cases, we are strangers even in our own land.


Of course, a trip back home is always a joyful experience, but one would have thought that there is a much bigger world to be seen, with its different cultures, cuisine, geographical features and so many more. Why should our experience of the Great Wall of China, the Great Barrier Reef, the Grand Canyon and a host of wonderful attractions all the world over be limited to what we read in our geography class back in school and what we see on television? Surely if one has the means to explore the world, one must make the very best of it? It should be a human, not European or American, trait to want to see other parts of the world.


So dear boga, next time you book your holiday at work, try something new. Put Accra on hold. Get an Atlas and explore your options, and then sail/fly off to explore other parts of the world without feeling you are engaging in a bout of ‘abrofosem’. Seychelles, Mauritius, Goa, Bangkok and Morroco are all nice, I gather. If you have children, give them the opportunities to fertilise their minds. Go on, the world is your oyster. Ghana can always wait, unless of course it is about that funeral or other important event. Remember man shall not live by cement blocks and the latest car or flat screen TV alone. It pays to broaden the mind by exploring the world. You need proper rest away from everyone and everything, just lazing about without a care in the world, with your mobile phone firmly switched off, alone in your lovely cocoon, even if only for two weeks.

Travel and see, they say. And they don’t just mean a direct return flight from Amsterdam or New York or London to Accra all the time.





The writer is the author of Abrokyir Nkomo: Reflections of A Ghanaian Immigrant, which was published in June 2009.